What Changes When You See People as Souls? Releasing the Need to Fix, Judge, or Change ThemWhat Changes When You See People as Souls? Releasing the Need to Fix, Judge, or Change Them
Recover Your Soul: A Spiritual Path to a Happy and Healthy Life
Rev. Rachel Harrison reflects on seeing people as souls, sharing how this perspective supports her recovery from alcoholism, codependency and control. She connects spiritual concepts, family stories and practical inner work to help reduce judgement and the urge to fix others.
42:47•17 Aug 2026
Seeing People as Souls: Letting Go of Fixing, Judging and Controlling
Episode Overview
- Seeing loved ones as souls on their own journey can reduce the urge to fix, judge or control them.
- Changing perception, as taught in A Course in Miracles, helps shift from victimhood to personal responsibility.
- Family members, including parents and adult children, may be part of "soul contracts" that highlight where inner healing is needed.
- True change comes from doing inner work on resentment, forgiveness and compassion rather than forcing external reconciliation.
- Recovering your soul means reclaiming the parts of yourself exiled by fear, pain and old beliefs, and remembering your wholeness.
“We are recovering those parts of ourselves, those aspects of ourselves that we have sent away out of fear, out of pain, and we're recovering them and we're bringing them back into our wholeness.”
Curious about how others handle family, recovery, and spirituality all at once? This conversation with Rev. Rachel Harrison circles around one big shift: seeing ourselves and others as souls first, humans second. Rachel shares how her own journey from alcoholism, codependency and “control addiction” led her to what she calls Soul Recovery.
She talks about moving from simply storing spiritual ideas “on the bookshelf” in her mind to actually living them, with A Course in Miracles acting as a major turning point in how she views separation, perception and the divine. A central theme here is control.
Rachel questions what happens if you stop trying to fix everyone, especially the people you love most, and instead recognise that “we are coming here to have a human experience, to learn, to grow, to shift, to evolve, to awaken.” She ties this directly to recovery work, 12-step principles and releasing old beliefs that life is happening to you rather than through you.
One of the most touching parts is her weekend with her 85-year-old father, a born storyteller surrounded by his “props for the story”. Watching him share his treasures, she notices how different it feels to see him “through the eyes of my soul to the eyes of his soul”, rather than from her old wounds as a daughter. That shift softens judgement, loosens resentment and makes space for cleaner boundaries and more honest conversations.
Rachel also speaks about karmic patterns, reincarnation and the idea of “soul contracts”, yet keeps it grounded with a simple invitation: take what resonates and leave the rest. For anyone in alcohol or family recovery who struggles with trying to fix others, this episode offers a gentle reframe: what if the real work is inside you, and that’s enough?
How might your relationships change if you began to see every person in your life as a soul on their own journey?
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